Gritty Realism

Algernon (Al) Spoffington-Smythe II

Description:

In his early thirties, with black hair, brown eyes and classically handsome facial features. Lean and athletic, but his soft palms betray his easy upbringing.

Bio:

Algernon was born to a maid working for the Spoffington-Smythes, a noble family whose wealth and power came from the slaves they traded and worked in their mines.

Although suspicion was rife amongst the household that he was the result of a dalliance with one of the male members of the house, Aurelia Spoffington-Smythe, matriarch and adoptive mother of Algernon refuted those rumours at every opportunity. She told him of his mother’s madness, something he had heard about often enough growing up. But although she was often hysterical and delusional, in a rare moment of clarity she had once confided in Aurelia that the father had been the most beautiful man she had ever seen, with a voice like an angel.

For years Algernon was plagued by dreams and visions. His parents feared their only heir was suffering from the same madness that had taken his birth mother before her disappearance. In time, Algernon learned to trust the visions which guided his actions, often foretelling events weeks before they occurred.

As he grew older, Algernon began to reflect upon the reality of the world around him. His family’s Dwarven workers had no control over their lives and were forbidden possessions. He began to talk to them, learning their language and with it a common word rarely spoken around him. Slave. He realised they were neither beneath him, nor were his family better than them, once separated from their wealth and power. For a while a hate for his own family began to fester, but before long he realised that they were just as much a victim of the world as everyone else, that society prevented them from seeing what he had seen.

Between reflecting upon the world around him, and his guiding voice, he realised change was necessary. Greed and inequality had broken the lives of those around him. Seeing some children. playing with stones outside a mine one day, Algernon fetched some of his old childhood toys. Seeing the joy the young dwarves got from an old, forgotten possession was the last part of the puzzle. Choosing a simple life for himself, free of the trappings of possessions, he chose to only own that which was necessary to improve the Kingdom.

As he became known to the dwarves, he learned much of the outside world. From an old monk, he learned self-control. Eventually through meditation he learned that with a still mind he could channel the celestial power that had guided him for so long and turn it into a potent force for good . He also learned of the resistance, a movement which everybody had heard of, but nobody knew anything about. If he was going to change the world, he would need allies. It was then that a familiar voice told him to head to the capital Reinmann to seek the truth…